Letter to the Editor Thursday January 24, 2013

Decades of deceit

So the once mighty Lance Armstrong has at long last seen fit to admit to being corrupt. Add to that mix the likelihood that world cycling bodies were also very much involved and you have a level of complicity not seen since the darkest days of New Zealand's pre-1995 'amateur' rugby days, when every senior player, rugby writer, coach and administrator was aware of 'under the table' payments to our cartel of professional rugby players who chose clubs that paid the most cash and provided the most lucrative bribes.

Those players were able to train full-time, with cushy job 'fronts' and undertake overseas tours with the financial backing of their sponsors. They were unfairly able to live and breathe rugby while true amateurs in New Zealand and around the world struggled to fit in their trainings amongst the everyday pressures of life.

For decades our All Black teams, packed with these pros, were able to slaughter the honest amateur playing nations of the world.

Looking through pre-1995 rugby literature, several of the same broadcasters and journalists in control of rugby media then still rule the roost today. So why didn't they report on the illegal payments to our All Blacks and best provincial players then? Why haven't any of the books or All Black biographies they wrote have even one sentence on professional lifestyles, tax-dodging, club bribes and cash bonuses?

Therefore it is hypocritical that we lambast Armstrong when we were, effectively as a nation, involved in a far bigger international cover-up. To this day no player has been man enough to front up, and there have been hundreds from the 1970s when New Zealand rugby effectively turned pro.

Armstrong's 'victories' have been struck from the record books. Should this also apply to the test wins the ABs accrued during their decades of deceit?

HARKO BROWN

Kerikeri